Defeating Sony BMG Copy-Protection

I don’t steal music.

I bought this CD, but learned that it had copy-protection software installed on it–a “root kit” which would attempt to infect my computer and install a device driver to prevent me from copying the music to my hard drive.

The idea is so that people can’t rip mp3s and pirate them all over the Internet. But I just want to listen to music on my computer.

Fortunately, there are people who figure out how to get around this stuff. I used two methods to fix my computer so that the CD couldn’t install any malicious software.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/cd_autoplay_pro.htm

http://features.engadget.com/2004/06/29/how-to-tuesday-disable-autorun-on-windows/

I recommend the second option as it does not directly edit the system registry. With the second option, you can also disable autorun on all drives, not just the cd-rom drive. This will prevent malicious programs from automatically starting off of a flash drive, for instance. So even if you never buy any CDs from Sony BMG, it is still a good idea to do this.